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4 284 website builders, 20 markets, 32 brands, 1 winner EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION This study examines 284 website providers who This paper is the third in a series commissioned by serve automotive dealerships in the United States. Dealer.com to examine the effectiveness of Speci&ically the study investigates search results automotive dealer website builders. using Google for an automotive dealership from one of 32 brands in the 20 largest metropolitan All three studies have looked at how frequently a areas of the country. builders clients show up in the top rankings on Google’s search engine results page. The study focuses on each builder’s ability to get their clients’ websites ranked among the 4irst 10 The two previous papers highlighted the search results on a Google Search Engine Results importance of online search in general and Google Page (SERP) in particular. Two companies stand out as the most pro2icient by In an effort to make this document more succinct far: Dealer.com and Cobalt Group. we are omitting those sections here, assuming that the reader is aware of the role search plays in the In more than 25% of all the searches we conducted automotive retail channel. Dealer.com is responsible for the number one listed result on the SERP. The two previous reports can both be downloaded from www.sorgenfreillc.com. This could be attributed to Dealer.com’s size, however looking across brands and markets the result is the same. … this is the third report in a series examining the ef#icacy of website builders catering to auto dealers w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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5 6,400 search results analyzed THE STUDY METHODOLOGY The two previous studies elicited valuable feedback In order to duplicate users’ experience searching from website builders mentioned in the studies. Google from around the country, we used Change One of the criticisms of the methodology was that location and Google’s Adwords targeted ad preview we had chosen the automotive brands we examined tool. The searches took place during the last two to please the studys sponsor. weeks of November 2010 and the 5irst two weeks of December 2010. In order to alleviate those concerns, for this study we decided to expand the brands examined from Searches were executed for each of the 32 brands the original 12, adding an additional 20 brands. in each of the 20 markets by entering a brand, This study includes 32 total automotive brands: “dealer,” and a city (e.g., "Mazda dealer Nashville"). Acura, Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, General Motors, Honda, As in prior studies, only the resulting organic Hyundai, In#initi, Isuzu, Jaguar, Jeep, Kia Motors, listings were examined, ignoring paid listings to Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Mini, Mercedes, ensure that the performance of the builders was Mercury, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Saab, Subaru, reliant on their SEO abilities and not on the Suzuki, Toyota, and Volkswagen. advertising budgets of the vehicle manufacturers or their dealers. The resulting listings included dealer As in the previous two studies, the study examines websites, third-­‐party sites and vehicle automotive dealer website builder performance in manufacturer (OEM) sites. 20 major markets: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Although Google Places is gaining momentum, we Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, excluded them from the study since dealers have to New York City, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San verify listings which is beyond the website builder’s Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. control. We examined 6,400 search results from 284 different website builders. The search results were cataloged by: -­‐ Position on the search engine results page -­‐ Number of pages indexed per site -­‐ Website vendor that built the site w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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6 90% of clickthroughs happen on the first page RESULTS Our analysis will focus on three areas of performance: which website builders sites appear most frequently in the top ten search results on any given Google search results page (SERP), which appear most frequently in the top <ive on the SERP, and *inally which builder is most frequently behind the number one listing on the SERP. The argument behind this focus is as follows: Across all SERPs that Google serves up, 90% or more of clickthroughs go to the 6irst ten listed sites, roughly 75% are on the )irst )ive listed sites, and 49% are on the )irst result in the listing (data from Search Light Digital). In other words, in almost half of all searches, only the .irst listed result gets any traf.ic from Google organic listings. In addition to presenting the results in aggregated form, we will also report website builder performance by automotive brand and by city. We present the analysis by brand as a way to account for the role of overall brand presence in SERP results. In most cases, individual dealers decide who builds their website and manages their Internet presence. We wanted to understand potential differences among the brands to see if the strength of presence of, for instance, a BMW dealer could be attributed to the strength of the brand, or if the website builder made …Google weighs a signiicant difference. smaller and larger builders evenly… The analysis of performance by city is an effort to eliminate bias in favor of national brands like Dealer.com and Cobalt Group to see if we could identify local website builders that were particularly strong in a given geographical area. Finally, we wanted to acknowledge the complaint of some smaller website builders that larger builders have an unfair advantage in our study, since (with more clients) those larger builders are more likely to rank better. It is impossible for us to collect data on the number of clients for each of 284 different builders in order to calculate a ratio score for top search placements to total number of clients. However, a smaller builder could challenge the larger builders to a ratio contest, and we encourage them to do so. The more information dealers have when making a provider choice, the better. w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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7 GETTING TO THE FIRST PAGE We have looked at 6,400 SERP listings across 20 markets and 32 brands. In 5,973 (93.3%) of the listings examined, we were able to identify the website builder responsible for the site. For the remaining 6.7%, we could not determine the vender that had built the site for the dealer; these listings have been excluded from the analysis to avoid omission errors. As in previous studies, Dealer.com emerges as the most pro7icient website Out of 6,400 search builder out of a total of 284 examined in terms of getting the largest number of results we were able to placements on the -irst SERP for their clients. Number two is Cobalt Group, identify the builder followed by three aggregators, Cars.com, Source Interlink Media, and behind 93.3% Edmunds.com. Dealer.com was identi3ied as the builder for 1,066 (17.8%) of the identi(ied listings; 770 sites (12.9%) were built by Cobalt Group, and Cars.com was responsible for 478 sites (8.0%). Top 10 Placements Count Share Dealer.com 1,066 17.8% Cobalt Group 770 12.9% Cars.com 478 8.0% Source Interlink Media 279 4.7% Edmunds.com 277 4.6% AutoTrader.com 237 4.0% Reynolds Web Solu.ons 147 2.5% TK Carsites 147 2.5% BZ Results 130 2.2% DealerSkins 128 2.1% w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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8 MOVING TOWARD THE HEAD OF THE CLASS While appearing on the .irst SERP is important, the closer you are to the top of the listings the higher the chance a listing will result in a click. Given that 75% of clicks are on one of the /irst /ive listed results, the top half of the page is prime real estate for an automotive dealer. Of 3,200 listings in the top -ive, we were able to identify the builder behind 3,029 sites (94.7%). Here again, Dealer.com and Cobalt Group come out as number one and two, respectively, with 656 (21.7%) and 441 (14.6%) results. Cars.com, Edmunds.com, and BZ Results round out the top 0ive. Of note, as a smaller builder (although part of ADP), BZ Results proves that with well-­‐designed sites and solid SEO, even the smaller players can produce sites that rank near the top of Googles SERP. Top 5 Placements Count Share Dealer.com 656 21.7% Cobalt Group 441 14.6% Cars.com 295 9.7% Edmunds.com 98 3.2% BZ Results 90 3.0% Source Interlink Media 83 2.7% Reynolds Web Solu.ons 80 2.6% AutoTrader.com 79 2.6% Motorwebs 74 2.4% DealerSkins 71 2.3% Dealer.com, Cobalt Group and Cars.com are consistently in the top 3 w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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9 REACHING THE TOP As 49% of all searches lead to a consumer clicking on the 7irst listed result, getting that coveted top spot could mean thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars revenue difference to a dealer. Dealer.com cements its status as the most skilled builder, with the highest percentage (25.8%) of identi&iable sites listed in the top spot. Cobalt Group follows with 114 listings (18.8%) in the top spot. Cars.com, Reynolds Web Solutions, and TK Carsites round out the top +ive. A sidenote for the website builders in our study: it is remarkable that in almost 5% of the top sites, no mention of the builder can be found either on the visual site or in the underlying code. As buyers of website design services are becoming more savvy, 1inding the best builders should be easier. Website builders owe it to themselves to make sure they get those leads organically. Top 1 Placements Count Share Dealer.com 156 25.8% Cobalt Group 114 18.8% Cars.com 29 4.8% Reynolds Web Solu.ons 21 3.5% TK Carsites 18 3.0% Click Mo)ve 17 2.8% DealerSkins 17 2.8% Search Op*cs 16 2.6% Motorwebs 15 2.5% eCarList 13 2.1% Motorwebs is an interesting case. This is a smaller company that dominates the Seattle market (14 of their 15 number one listings come from the Seattle metropolitan area) and because they utilize strong SEO practices, they rank well in the overall study. Looking across the 20 metropolitan areas included in the study, we found three cases in which a smaller builder dominated the number one SERP listings: Search Optics in San Diego, eCarList in Dallas, and Motorwebs in Seattle. This data illustrates the fact that it isn’t the size of a company that determines its ability to achieve top results, but the implementation of eficient and intelligent SEO practices. w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m

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13 Dealer.com is the clear winner when it comes to getting their clients ranked CONCLUSION Automotive consumers researching dealers online are inundated with search results from manufacturers, dealers, third-­‐party aggregators, and lead-­‐generation companies across organic and paid search results. They have become accustomed to the “noise” generated on search engine results pages. Data from the dominant player in the search-­‐engine space, Google, proves that landing on the 3irst page of search results is vital to drive organic traf2ic to a site. Being on the ,irst page is akin to showing up to the game. If you want to be competitive, your results need to be among the top :ive on the page and if you want to win, showing up in the .irst spot on an SERP is paramount. This study demonstrates that Dealer.com and Cobalt consistently deliver results for their clients. Both are large organizations with intelligent programmers who optimize their sites to work well with search engines. With that said, this study also showed that some smaller companies have igured out how to compete with these large providers. Search Optics in San Diego, eCarList in Dallas, and Motorwebs in Seattle have )igured out how to deliver top listings for their clients in their distinct markets, proving that it isn’t simply the size of a provider that brings top results. But there can only be one overall winner, and that award goes to Dealer.com. They deliver more results for their clients on the ,irst SERP, more in the top ,ive spots, and most importantly, the most in the coveted top spot. Across 32 brands, in 20 markets and competing against 283 other website providers, Dealer.com is consistently the builder behind the number one search results listed on Google. w w w . s o r g e n f r e i l l c . c o m